Lamarcus Joyner, the Rams’ ‘franchise’ player, could be playing his final game with team

Share this:

Rams defensive back Lamarcus Joyner played the 2018 season under contract terms dictated by a ‘franchise tag,’ but will make $11.287 million, and could become a free agent in 2019. (Photo by Kyusung Gong, Orange County Register/SCNG)

ATLANTA — Lamarcus Joyner has been through hard knocks, and Hard Knocks. The former? It took him a while to find a role with the Rams. The latter? The show on which he said he’d quit and work at WalMart.

Joyner has been through a lot in less than five years with the Rams. Now, his time with the team might be coming to an end, but what a conclusion it would be, in Sunday’s Super Bowl against New England.

The Rams’ second-round draft pick in 2014, Joyner endured the team’s relocation from St. Louis and his own shifting, from lightly used cornerback to nickelback and then to free safety, the position at which he has thrived for the past two seasons under coordinator Wade Phillips.

“It’s great,” Joyner said. “I’ve been here for the good times and the bad times, so I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum. It just feels good to finally have some success with a lot of these guys that deserve it.”

It might be his last chance. After last season, the Rams applied their one-year franchise tag to Joyner. That wasn’t a bad thing. The tag came with a pre-set contract value of almost $11.3 million. Joyner had made a total of approximately $5 million in his first four seasons with the Rams.

Still, Joyner had wanted a long-term contract, and the tag only gave him one year, and — because of league rules — it prevented him from re-negotiating a deal with the Rams until the end of this season.

Joyner played well this season. He finished third on the team with 78 total tackles and even though he is listed at only 5-foot-8, Joyner is one of the team’s most aggressive tacklers. Asked about playing with an uncertain future this season, Joyner admitted it wasn’t always easy.

“I’m an honest person,” Joyner said, “so I’ll say that I was disguising it well. It’s always hanging around, but it’s not a worry. It’s good anxiety, if that makes sense.”

It does. Given the Rams’ salary situation, it seems somewhat unlikely that he will return to the Rams, but Joyner would be popular on the free-agent market given his relative youth (28), talent and versatility.

Joyner reinvented himself under Phillips. Before then, he’d been a part-time contributor at cornerback, a role that frustrated him. At one point during 2016 training camp, cameras from the HBO series “Hard Knocks” captured Joyner in the office of then-coach Jeff Fisher, where he said he would quit and work at WalMart.

That controversy died down quickly, and since the start of the 2017 season, Joyner has been a full-time starter at safety and a major contributor.

“There’s a lot of different dynamics in this game,” Joyner said. “There’s playing, there’s family, there’s the business side of it. So you have to be able to manage all of them, and all of them always are going to be in the back of your head, no matter what. I’m excited for the future.”

First, the present. Joyner knows the main task at hand for him, which is defending Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, his balanced set of pass targets and an offense, designed by coordinator Josh McDaniels, that never is predictable from week to week.

That’s not easy, particularly since this is routine for Brady — in his ninth Super Bowl — but Joyner isn’t flinching, and he particularly perked up when reminded that the Rams faced top quarterbacks such as Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Patrick Mahomes, Philip Rivers and Russell Wilson during the regular season.

“I’ve been mentioning that all this week,” Joyner said, “how playing against other all-time greats was able to prep us for an elite quarterback. Of course, the strategy New England will use is different from those guys. It’s a different dynamic, but that helps with the confidence and composure of going against another great quarterback.”

BIG CHANCE

Return specialist JoJo Natson, the smallest player on the Rams’ roster, at 5-foot-7, is enjoying his big week.

“Honestly, I can tell you I didn’t think I would be here, with my journey the way it popped off,” Natson said. “It’s been a very unique season for me and a very blessed season for me.”

The Rams signed Natson, who previously had been with Indianapolis and the New York Jets, last July, and he turned heads in training camp with his returns but got released at the end of camp. Then, when returner Pharoh Cooper hurt his ankle early in the season, the Rams signed Natson.

Natson thrived, with an average of more than 10 yards per punt return, and surprisingly kept the job even when Cooper, an All-Pro selection in 2017, returned. Cooper returned in mid-November and both players were on the active roster for a month, but then the Rams waived Cooper.

Natson retained the job, and the confidence of Rams coaches, even after a high-profile fumble late in the fourth quarter of a narrow loss to Philadelphia.

“Pharoh is a heck of a player, great player,” Natson said, “and I’m glad and blessed the situation played out like it did, with both of us being able to be on the active roster at the same time.”

Rich Hammond was a high school senior when the Rams left town in 1995, and now he's their beat writer for the Southern California News Group. A native of L.A., Rich broke in at the Daily Breeze as a college freshman and also has covered USC, the Kings, the Lakers and the Dodgers. He still loves sports and telling stories. Don't take the sarcastic tweets too seriously.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.